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Coastal Adventure | Newport to Coos Bay

Coastal Adventure | Newport to Coos Bay

As we headed south toward Newport we said goodbye to the last of the sun rays. In the morning, we were lucky enough to catch a bit of sun for our walk on the beach. Even though our Newport days were foggy, it was definitely our favorite coastal town in Oregon. Although, it should be said that we may be partial due to the fact that we discovered two excellent restaurants. I tend to be enthusiastic about anywhere with good eats.

Above you see the pastries and omelet from La Maison, Newport, and yes it was every bit as good as the picture suggests, better even. This picture doesn’t do justice to the pastry cream filling inside the maple pastry on the left. This pastry was a genius idea really, the chef took the idea of a maple bar, and made it French. Starting with a delicious croissant dough sliced in half, filled with vanilla pastry cream, and topped with maple frosting. To the right you see a chocolate croissant, Tyler’s favorite. Finally, for the omelet; it was perfectly cooked, filled with rich soft Brie cheese, and wrapped in prosciutto. I don’t think there is anyway to describe how good it was, but I think you get the drift.

The waterfront is an attraction unto itself in Newport. For us, ok… me, the seafood restaurant, Local Oceans down on the waterfront was my favorite thing in Newport. The food was awesome, really there’s nothing else to say, everything was delicious. It was positively worth the wait to get in. If you look up the menu online, you’ll get hungry just reading it. I had the crab cakes and the fish ‘n’ chips, yes.. in the same meal. Like I said before, too much of a good thing can still be a good thing. This is my pat excuse whenever we are near the ocean.

Besides restaurants, Newport is home of the famous Rogue Brewery and the Rogue Creamery. The cheeses that I tried were excellent, and since then I’ve been able to locate a couple of them here in Montana. There is also a fairly large aquarium here. We didn’t go because the Seattle aquarium was already on the docket, but it is definitely a main point of interest in Newport. There is also a great lighthouse to visit as well, we couldn’t even see it in the fog but the pictures online look good.

Heading south, the Oregon Dunes National Park Recreation spreads down the coast to Coos Bay, and they are the largest stretch of coastal sand dunes in North America. You can rent dune buggies and ride in the sand dunes. Somehow we missed this place when we were planning our trip and it was our only regret. If you are in this part of the world, it looks like a really fun thing to do, and we were disapointed that we didn’t have time to stop. We immediately made plans to add it in to a trip that we’re planning to California, it just looks too good to miss.

Yeah… that looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t it?

The last couple of trips to the west coast we’ve went tide-pooling, and it’s been a lot of fun. The Canon Powershot D10 that we use often for adventure photos is actually an underwater camera as well. We took some underwater photos in the tide pools and I thought they turned out pretty cool. The camera can get a different angle of the tide pools, and you get to see some things that you wouldn’t see as well from above the water.

I love how everything is so vibrant and filled with color. Maybe I’m easily entertained, but I can just sit and watch the tide pool life move about. The diversity of life in the different pools fascinates me. It might not be for everyone, but we can highly recommend it.

I sometimes forget that I’ve just had the camera underwater and I take a shot above the water that comes out all blurry with water droplets, so I would recommend bringing a good cloth with you to clean the lens in between shots.

Fish Tacos, yum, I never get tired of these. I can eat them day after day. It’s part of the whole fish ‘n’ chips, fish tacos, seafood thing. Nothing beats fresh seafood on the wharf.

On our way through the coastal towns we saw this sign, it made us laugh so we took a picture.

The fog was really socked in as we traveled down to Coos Bay. I’ve heard the scenery is phenomenal, but we couldn’t see anything along this stretch. I guess fog is to be expected along the coast. We didn’t care, we were just happy to be walking the shoreline in the sand again. Over the last few years we’ve both gotten the ocean bug. We just love spending time by the water and listening to the tides come in and out. There is something so relaxing about uninterrupted days walking along the oceans edge without anything particular to do. I love waking up to the tide coming in and ending the day with a spectacular ocean sunset.

Coos Bay is a neat coastal town, the waterfront is beautiful and the town has preserved it’s historical architecture. We spent a little time exploring Coos Bay, then headed out to Cape Argo National Park. But before we headed out of town I had…, you guessed it.., Fish Tacos AGAIN!

Here is the overlook for Cape Argo, it’s absolutely breathtaking. There is a group of sea lions that like to hang out around here making quite a racket and adding to the scenery. It’s really neat to watch them, though we were wishing for a pair of binoculars to see them a little better.

While we were watching this gorgeous sunset, we actually got to see some whales rising. We didn’t see any on our last coastal trip, so we were super excited. It was really something to see the whales spouting with the sun setting in the background. It leaves you a little awestruck to see something so magnificent.

See you next week as we travel into the heart of Oregon and on to Crater Lake.

4 Comments on “Coastal Adventure | Newport to Coos Bay”

Love the sign “sometimes it’s okay to throw rocks at girls”. Whoever came up with that for advertising is awesome, totally made me laugh! That omelette and maple pastry, yummyness. The underwater photos… feel like I’m right there.

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Hi everyone! My name is Kari. I'm enjoying country living here in the Flathead Valley, Montana. I love to create mostly healthy recipes, and occasionaly a chocolatey indulgence. I hope you find something inspirational; let me know what you think.
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